PBS
My 7-year-old daughter wants to be WordGirl for Halloween, and it's a perfect match—big saucer eyes, shoulder-length brown hair, pencil-thin body. The character of Word Girl is also tailor-made for Halloween (she wears a costume, after all). There's only one problem: No official WordGirl costume exists, at least none that my Internet could find for me.
Nor could I find equally iconic Charlie and Lola costumes or Cyberchase costumes. All that's left of my kids' personal TV playlist is SpongeBob. And my kids want to live with SpongeBob, not be him.
Now, you mommies out there will probably tell me how easy it is to make a WordGirl costume, and my daughter's mother may indeed do just that, but my smooth fingers were made for keyboards and remote controls, not scissors and cloth.
My deep web search did reveal a number of kid costumes for TV characters that range from totally obvious (at least four versions of Hannah Montana) to just plain weird (The Travelocity Gnome). Basically, you're in luck if your kid wants to be Abby Cadabby, Ben 10, Thomas the Train, a Backyardigan, Clifford, a Power Ranger, Curious George, Barney, Dora, Diego, a Teen Titan, a Doodle Bop, Elmo, Trix the Rabbit, a Little Einstein, Bakugan Dan, a HSM star, a slutty American Idol contestant, or Pinhead from Hellraiser.
No, Pinhead isn't a TV character, but I'm including him here because I left him off my list of incredibly inappropriate Halloween costumes for kids. Speaking of movies, there's even a kid's Sleestak costume from the straight-to-bomb Land of the Lost. Apparently, someone had an itchy trigger finger in the Universal Pictures marketing department.
My daughter may have to settle for her other favorite costume—a homemade Cat in the Hat that I actually helped make for her two years ago—but here's my message to the PBS powers-that-be: I've got a credit card warmed up and ready to go for a very specific outfit based on one of your all-time best characters.
All you need to do is say the Word.
